agility robotics
Digit’s first job will be moving totes around a Connecticut Spanx factory — which is most definitely not a euphemism.
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Industries may be ready for humanoid robots, but are the robots ready for them?
How large a role humanoids will play in that ecosystem is, perhaps, the biggest question on everyone’s mind at the moment.
Agility Robotics lays off some staff amid commercialization focus
Agility Robotics on Thursday confirmed that it has laid off a “small number” of employees. The well-funded Oregon-based firm says the job loss is part of a company-wide focus on…
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Agility Robotics’ new CEO is ‘focused on the here and now’
There was nothing else like Digit on the ProMat floor last year. The manufacturing supply chain event has gradually morphed into a tech show in recent years. Many of the biggest names in the space were present, showcasing autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), bin picking arms and automated storage and retrieval…
Agility Robotics: Our robot won’t be armed or take your jobs
Agility Robotics will soon be able to make 10,000 bipedal humanoid robots per year and claims it is creating jobs rather than taking them from humans.
Today, Agility Robotics announced it’s getting ready to crank up its RoboFab, which can build more than 10,000 Digits per year.
We’ve discussed Agility quite a bit over the last several years. Most recently, it’s been a focus on the Oregon firm’s push to commercialize. There’s no question that the technology…
There’s a broad range of thought on robot faces. It’s a surprisingly difficult aspect to get right for some very good reasons. For one thing, we’re hardwired to recognize and…
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It’s a sprint, not a marathon
Here’s a question for you: How seriously should we take Amazon’s home robotics play? Perhaps a better way of framing it is: When do we take Amazon’s home robotics play seriously? I realize these sound like pointed questions, and I should specify that they’re not really specific to Amazon. They’re…
Agility’s next Digit robot will have a face and hands
Digit, the bipedal robot developed by Agility Robotics, will continue to evolve and improve, including the addition of a head and some digits of its very own, according to co-founders…
Look what’s happening tomorrow at TC Sessions: Robotics
Who’s ready for robots? Tomorrow, July 21, is the big day when the global community of people who live, breathe and build robots gather to talk about the latest developments…
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Optimus Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time?
So, yeah, kicking off another installment of the newsletter by talking a bit about our upcoming robotics event. Honestly, this panel is a special one, though. It’s one I’d been thinking about before I even knew if we’d be returning to an in-person event this year. Daniela Rus and Matthew…
As it brings its bipedal robots to market, Agility announces a $150M round
Yesterday, Amazon announced that Agility Robotics is one of the five initial startups benefitting from the company’s $1 billion innovation fund. If I had to guess, I’d say that meant…
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As the worm turns
Here’s something for you to mull over this fine Thursday morning: Do agtech robotics need a reset? Granted, we’re dealing with a small sample size here, but a string of news items over the past year have left me wondering why the category is — thus far — failing to…
TechCrunch+ roundup: Box unfolds a surprise, robotics pitch tips, BNPL growing pains
Growth is good, but like the James Brown song, Klarna is paying the cost to be the boss.
Daily Crunch: Hackers leak nearly 200 gigabytes of internal Samsung source code
Hello friends and welcome to Daily Crunch, bringing you the most important startup, tech and venture capital news in a single package.
Robotics founders: Build your pitch deck around problem-solving, not technology
In a recent episode of TechCrunch Live, Agility’s Jonathan Hurst and Playground Global’s Bruce Leak joined us to discuss the robotic company’s journey from the lab to the commercial sector.
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Putting the autonomous cart before the robotic horse
I’m writing this fresh off hosting TechCrunch Live this week with Jonathan Hurst of Agility Robotics and Bruce Leak of Playground Global. I’ll be posting more about the session later this week, but in the meantime, it’s got me thinking about carts, horses and the inherent ordering system therein. Specifically,…
Agility Robotics and Playground Global join TechCrunch Live to speak on robotics fundraising
Warehouse logistics one of the fastest growing verticals for robotics investments amid pandemic-related shutdowns. There’s been plenty of interest in the category over the years, but COVID-19 has accelerated interest…
Hear from these amazing investors and founders on TechCrunch Live this March
TechCrunch Live has an exciting slate of episodes scheduled for March. The speakers come from a variety of disciplines, backgrounds and locations. Like always, each episode features an entrepreneur presenting…
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Alphabet X’s exosuit
Last week, Kathryn Zealand shared some insight on the eve of Women’s Equality Day. The post highlighted an issue that’s been apparent to everyone in and around the robotics industry: there’s a massive gender gap. It’s something we try to be mindful of, particularly when programming events like TC Sessions:…
A new video from Agility Robotics showcases an increasing familiar sight: advanced, autonomous robots performing boring warehouse tasks. It’s not the sort of video that tends to be hugely viral…
You may well recognize Cassie as the basis of Agility Robotics’ delivery bot, Digit. If you’ve been following the tech’s progression at all, however, you no doubt know that it…
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Talking robots with Ford
Before we get too far into this week’s roundup, I want to kick things off with an interview we haven’t published anywhere else. Earlier this week, we noted that Ford will be deploying some 100 researchers and engineers to the new $75 million facility at the University of Michigan, Ann…
Agility, the Oregon State University spin-off behind Digit and Cassie, announced this morning that it has raised $20 million in funding. The latest round, led by DCVC and Playground Global,…
Enabling humanoid robot movement with imitation learning and mimicking of animal behaviors
Humanoid robots have not stood up to the expectation set forth by Rosie from The Jetsons in the 1960s, but they’re finally becoming good enough to come to market.
Agility’s two-legged robot Digit is for sale and Ford is the first customer
Agility Robotics is putting Digit — a two-legged robot that can lift 40-pound packages — on the market. And Ford Motor is the first customer. Ford, which has been involved…
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In Ford’s future, two-legged robots and self-driving cars could team up on deliveries
Autonomous vehicles might someday be able to navigate bustling city streets to deliver groceries, pizzas and other packages without a human behind the wheel. But that doesn’t solve what Ford Motor CTO Ken Washington describes as the last 50-foot problem. Ford and startup Agility Robotics are partnering in a research…
Students at Oregon State University dressed up their bipedal robot, Cassie, in a delightful AT-ST costume. This robot, which everyone said looked like one of the Empire’s two-legged walkers anyway,…
Check out these amazing demos at TC Sessions: Robotics May 11 at UC Berkeley
We’re a mere two and a half weeks out from TC Sessions: Robotics, and we couldn’t be more excited. We’ve got a full-day schedule packed to the brim with some…
